U.S. Treasury Secretary expecting new sanctions on Iran

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Thursday that he expected U.S. President Donald Trump to impose new sanctions on Iran.

“I am expecting new sanctions on Iran. We continue to look at them. We’ve rolled them out and I think you can expect there will be more sanctions coming,” Mnuchin told reporters, according to the Reuters news agency.

Trump faces a deadline of Friday on whether to waive sanctions on Iran as part of the 2015 nuclear deal, after he refused to certify in October that Iran was complying with the deal.

Reports on Wednesday indicated that Trump is expected to extend the relief from economic sanctions to Iran though no official word of that has been given.

Trump has repeatedly criticized the Iran deal, one of Obama’s signature foreign policy achievements, as the worst ever negotiated by the U.S.

Last week, amid the ongoing anti-government protests in Iran, Trump again blasted Obama and the deal, saying that the money transferred to Iran never benefitted the Iranian people, and was instead funneled to terrorist organizations.

“The people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime. All of the money that President Obama so foolishly gave them went into terrorism and into their ‘pockets.’ The people have little food, big inflation and no human rights. The U.S. is watching!” he tweeted.

Iranian officials have repeatedly criticized Trump over his decision not to certify the deal. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Tehran will stick to the agreement as long as the other signatories do, but will “shred” the deal if Washington pulls out.

On Monday, Iran threatened to reconsider its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, if the United States failed to respect its commitments in the nuclear deal.